12 July 2010

Just a quick post about something I read last week - a short phrase somewhere in a blog article, somewhere online. It was a question:

What are you researching?

The author noted that we should always be able to ask a fiction writer that question and have them answer. I thought that was interesting, since, in fact, I go through long periods of time where I'm not actually researching anything.

Quite possibly, I should be. And quite possibly, I do so without really thinking about it. And also quite possibly, I'm totally lazy and leave my researching for edits, where I know better what research I'll actually need and thus am not so likely to spend days researching methods of water purification in the 1400s when it turns out that what I actually needed was ways of sourcing water in the 1500s. So, maybe not lazy so much as a matter of knowing my perfectionist tendencies too well, and trying to avoid their clutches. O:)

But anyway. Researching. It occured to me, reading that question, that there are actually things I need to be actively researching, and there are random things that I could be reading (most of my TBR pile is non-fic) that would aid me on my continual quest to Know More, in order that I might write what I know. So, I'm sticking a new gadet in the sidebar, just to the left there about the Currently Reading list: a Currently Researching list, with links to random interesting stuff as I find it, or books that I'm reading for the research.

At present, I've been randomly researching early civilisations and their mythology, including Biblical mythology (and finding so many connections my brain is exploding with stories and glee). I'm also deliberately researching glass-making and the history of glass for my Shard series, since I'm planning to start editing Jesscapades in August. And I'm researching wolves - distribution, behaviour, population dynamics, interactions with humans - in preparation for another story that's been bubbling away in my mind.

I've researched shoe making and am about to research Ancient Persia. I've also had to learn about the different fairy courts. A lot of my research for the basis of my worlds has come from years and years of devouring stories. :D